Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Category: Speeches
Monday 28 April 2008
Printable version

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Thank you for inviting me to give a Â鶹ԼÅÄ perspective this morning.

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"Radio reborn" – what an inspirational title for a conference! I've lost count of the number of times in my Â鶹ԼÅÄ career I was told, by doommongers, that the writing was on the wall for radio. All those predictions proved false. And we are, as you can see, alive and kicking.

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However, alive and kicking as radio is, it does face increasing threats today. The developments taking place right now are as challenging as any I can remember since I joined the Â鶹ԼÅÄ many years ago. And, if we are complacent, radio will increasingly struggle to compete effectively with other media and, for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ, its long-term role in delivering public purposes will diminish.

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What are those threats?

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Listening declining

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Whilst overall reach to radio remains static, at around 90% of the UK population – a remarkable figure when you think of all the alternative ways that now exist for people to spend their leisure time – since 2004, the long-term growth in radio listening per head has declined, as average radio listening per head fell by around 6%. And this decline is most marked with younger listeners. Over time, this drop in listening, could translate into falling reach.

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So are we are at a crucial moment in the history of radio where we have to be "reborn"?

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Radio is an incredibly powerful medium, reaching millions yet capable of having a one-to-one relationship with every single member of the audience. A voice in your head, uniquely personal, to which many people form a strong emotional attachment. A medium that has thrived in the face of revolutions and threats over the years, from the start of television to the development of internet, radio has embraced those threats and led the way for the rest of the broadcasting industry, by grasping the opportunities of technology and of the internet in particular. In facing the new challenges we must never forget why radio has been so resilient.

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What makes today more challenging?

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The economic climate

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Let's start with the economic climate. As we all know, it is not just the financial and housing markets that have been having a turbulent time recently. Everyone will have been watching with concern the difficulties that commercial radio has had over the past year.

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I'd like to say at the outset, and not just because Fru Hazlitt is with me on the platform, that radio in the UK will not thrive without a healthy commercial sector. I believe in radio as an industry. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ has no wish to exist in a vacuum. Uncertainty over funding is a big threat to us all, and to our audiences. In radio, just as in television, commercial competition has made the Â鶹ԼÅÄ sharpen up its act time after time. That has benefited audiences. We depend on our partnership with the commercial sector to promote digital, to develop audience research, to raise awareness of the industry.

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Costs are a constant issue and, when the commercial world is having a hard time, there's a tendency for various siren voices to have a go at the Â鶹ԼÅÄ. But with a below-inflation licence fee settlement, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is not immune to funding pressures.

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We all know that investment in platform development is vital if radio is going to thrive in tomorrow's media market. Simulcasting on a range of platforms is an expensive business. FM, AM and not just DAB, but satellite, digital cable, DTT, IP platforms, WiFi and others. But simulcasting is expensive and the age where distribution was a minor percentage of radio's costs is past.

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Audience expectations

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Audience expectations are constantly changing, especially among younger age groups. Radio must meet the expectations of a generation that takes for granted increased choice and control over its media consumption.

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So we must constantly build on our record of innovation. Radio led the way for technology that is now transforming how audiences access both radio and television programme content.

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The obvious example is the Â鶹ԼÅÄ iPlayer, which has been in the news such a lot recently. The take-up since it was launched last Christmas has been remarkable. In its first three months there have been around 42 million programme requests. The figure has been growing approximately 25% month-on-month.

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In all the excitement about the iPlayer let's remember that radio pioneered the idea of putting audiences in control of their listening. It was the Â鶹ԼÅÄ's Radio Player, first launched in 2002, that made programmes available both live and on-demand for seven days after broadcast.

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Since 2005 almost every Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio programme has been available on the radio player, creating a massive, constantly changing library of music, talk shows, dramas and documentaries. Demand has grown every year. Last month live streamed listening totalled 17.2 million hours. On-demand listening was 7.3 million hours.

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Podcast demand has also risen strongly since we first tried out the technology in 2004. Last month we met demand for a total of 16.4 million MP3 downloads.

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Technological uncertainty

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Millions of radio listeners like the flexibility offered by digital technology. They have shown themselves ready, willing and able to try out new platforms.

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However, the biggest danger we face at present is technological uncertainty, and this particularly applies to DAB. There is no doubt that recent press coverage, fuelled by Fru's strategy for GCap and public statements, put a question mark over the future of DAB that should concern the whole industry.

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The UK radio sector as a whole is small compared to TV and broadband and is almost completely dependent on ad revenues and the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Licence Fee. At the same time, commercial margins have fallen significantly. This makes it harder for the commercial radio industry to make long term strategic investments and continue simulcasting on a wide range of digital platforms.

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So is DAB a failure or is it a success story?

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Let's look at the successes.

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More than 22% of UK adults say they now have DAB at home and that figure is forecast to reach 30% this year;

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DAB accounts for 10% of all radio listening;

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Recent RAJAR figures showed that nearly 5.6 million people tune into Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio by DAB every week;

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The hours that people spend listening to DAB exceeds the combined listening to radio on all other digital platforms, including digital TV and the internet.

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Of course digital television and the internet are important ways of delivering digital radio and they will grow. But to think the radio industry can do without DAB is incredibly shortsighted. It might deliver for shareholders in the short term but in my view we would end up with a diminished role for radio in the UK broadcasting landscape. It would shrink support from the people who count – the audience.

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I am taking this opportunity to stress once again that the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is full squarely behind DAB, as a crucial part of our multiplatform radio strategy.

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But we recognise there are issues that have to be overcome.

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coverage;

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affordability;

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quality of reception;

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attractiveness of devices;

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industry cohesiveness;

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technology certainty.

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They are not easy barriers to overcome, but they are not insurmountable!

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The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is collaborating with the whole of the industry to ensure DAB is a success. I welcome the recent agreement to work with 4 Digital Group to develop DAB as a key platform for the future of digital radio because I strongly believe DAB must remain at the heart of the UK digital radio experience. The reason is simple: it is the only platform that replicates some of radio's strongest features. It is both portable and easy to use. At the same time it gives listeners more choice and extra features such as programme information and storage. All kinds of people love it. Young and old.

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Increase population and geographic coverage

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So how are we going to overcome those barriers? Let's take coverage. As we all know, DAB coverage is incomplete. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ's national multiplex serves 86% of the UK population which means we currently only cover around 60% of the country.

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We have committed to building out our coverage. It will rise to 90% population coverage in the next five years, but will only give a maximum of 70% geographic coverage. Can we do that faster?

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We believe the Digital Radio Working Group should consider ways to help dramatically speed up growth of geographical coverage.

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The Â鶹ԼÅÄ, commercial radio, and our transmission providers, have no agreed planning model for digital radio or common measurement for the UK. Instead of the three different methods that currently exist I hope the DRWG, under Barry Cox's leadership, agrees a single planning model and common measurement and with that a plan to fill in areas where DAB coverage has "holes", thereby providing the consistent reception that DAB is capable of delivering.

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Broadcasters must work with multiplex operators and Ofcom to deliver higher signal strength which will improve the quality of reception across the UK.

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And then we should create a national coverage database, based on this single planning model, and made available online to the public.

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Promote DAB

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We should also co-ordinate our promotion of digital radio so it is most effective. The reinvigorated DRDB must ensure active industry support and promote the idea that digital radio delivers and pioneers innovative and enhanced services. Can we achieve a joint marketing approach with one message marketed consistently across the industry and with a single brand for digital radio? I hope so.

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The Â鶹ԼÅÄ recognises its role to promote the take up of DAB, working in partnership with the commercial sector. Our campaign on television at the end of last year helped to ensure that targets for 2007 were exceeded. Two million DAB radios were sold. There are now seven million sets in the UK. That is a huge vote of confidence by the British public. The challenge for us all, Â鶹ԼÅÄ and commercial, is to keep up the momentum.

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If we are serious as an industry in making radio work in the digital world then we have to collaborate. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ and commercial radio should collaborate to deliver a universal standard electronic programme guide.

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I really hope, though I recognise it will not be easy, that Barry Cox will be able to publish a clear roadmap on how the UK will move to a fully digital radio environment as the key outcome of the DRWG.

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Importance of mobile

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Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying DAB is the only platform radio needs to get right. In particular, delivery over the internet will be increasingly important as broadband Britain becomes a reality and more IP-enabled devices become mainstream. We need to be in the mobile world on mobile devices. We are already important in the on-demand world and that will become more and more important fuelled by WiFi radio, podcasting and IPTV. We need to provide data services, visual radio where appropriate and effective archive services. We need to do all that, and make DAB a success.

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Content

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But I am not going confine my remarks at a "radio reborn" conference to the issues of digital. I have left the most important issue to last. It is the one that I feel most passionate about. It is the one that really matters to audiences. It is the one that will decide the fate of radio in the future, just as it always has in the past.

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Without content there will be no future. Content is everything. Content is what matters to audiences. Everything else, all the digital technology in the world, comes down to convenience.

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Radio 4's current six-month season of programmes, 1968: Myth Or Reality, demonstrates the point. This is content with a capital C. It has taken a phenomenal amount of research. It has huge scale and ambition.

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For instance, John Tusa's Day By Day series, recreates 1968 in sound, every day for six months. It is a massive undertaking to bring memories alive from sound, print, film and television archives.

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The season delves deeper still into the year that has so much resonance for today's world. There are special programmes on everything from the US Army's tapes about the My Lai massacre, forgotten for 40 years, and Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, to Lenny Henry's quest to find out what was really so great about Bob Dylan.

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Studio discussions, from Paris, Prague and Chicago, and specially commissioned dramas, telling the story of protests, upheavals and assassinations around the world. And everyone who was there, and can remember as I remember, can take part in Memoryshare, which is gathering stories sent in online.

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Some of the programmes from a long list. If the "re-birth of radio" meant we had to pare back the Â鶹ԼÅÄ, content of this scale and depth would undoubtedly be lost. That is something I believe it is in the whole industry's interests to guard against. Public service broadcasting must have the financial ability to sustain content of such ambition.

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Great content, first broadcast on radio, is part of the cultural life of the nation.

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Bazalgette

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I cannot miss this opportunity to disagree profoundly with Peter's thesis.

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What a misunderstanding of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ's mission today. It is, as it has always been, to entertain as well as inform and educate. And people pay the licence fee and expect the Â鶹ԼÅÄ to provide programming of relevance to them, whatever age they are or demographic group.

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In tough economic times it is all the more important that the Â鶹ԼÅÄ should maintain its investment in radio. As the music industry will testify, Radio 1 and Radio 2 support UK talent, new music and live performance. They underpin the nation's cultural life in the broadest sense.

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They also provide news and information for mass audiences and for young audiences – think Jeremy Vine and Newsbeat – and broadcast documentaries and social action campaigns that have a valuable social role. For all these reasons it is vital that Radio 1 and Radio 2 remain part of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ's public service portfolio.

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Peter wants the money for theatre, opera, and museums to offer their own services because, he believes, they are denied access to broadcasting. Well Peter they are not denied access to Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio. Over the past year, just some of the examples of our partnerships with public service arts organisations:

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We have recorded productions of Othello from the Donmar, the award-winning performance from Chiwetel Ejiofar;

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The History Boys, Nick Hytner's National Theatre production;

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The acclaimed Sheffield Theatre's production of Schiller's play Don Carlos with Derek Jacobi;

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most opera productions from the Royal Opera House;

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Carmen from the ENO;

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from the Cheltenham, Hay, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals.

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Next year we will be telling the history of civilisation through the objects of the British Museum – a 100-part series on Radio 4 from the Director of the British Museum. The list can go on and on. You do not need to destroy Radios 1 and 2 to ensure that our great cultural institutions are given access to broadcasting. To do so would be a cultural travesty and confining public service broadcasting into cultural elitism.

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Summing up: Freedom to experiment

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In summing up I would say this: radio cannot be re-born without freedom to experiment. The whole joy of radio has been its capacity for innovation and surprise. It has been a constant voyage of discovery, from the pioneering broadcasts of the 1920s to the digital world of today.

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We must continue to innovate by our use of technology, by our creation of new formats, embracing new platforms, and above all investing in great content. If we do all that radio will be re-born again and again and continue to have the most personal relationship with audiences. Without that there will be no radio.